


14 Minutes

by Aldeen



Category: Original Work
Genre: Experimental writing, Gen, Prosa - Freeform, Short Story, misuse of physics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:15:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26682019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aldeen/pseuds/Aldeen
Summary: 14 minutes is an awfully short time in the breath of the universe.





	14 Minutes

The Meteoroid has a diameter of 9.28 km. That is not too big, considering the size of some of it fellow orbiters, mingling around in the Asteroid belt, just a bit away of Mars. Galactically speaking, it is tiny, not much more than a grain of sand compared to the vastness of objects in space. But this Meteoroid has the misfortune of being big enough to be disturbed. It is not a sharp pull by Jupiter, that is not how Gravitation works. Instead, the Meteoroid in its tumble through space has landed in a Kirkwood gap, followed the path for one rotation and then had its close encounter with Jupiter, changing its velocity vector just a bit. But it is enough to divert the Meteoroid from its Keplerian orbit, setting it on a trajectory with fatal consequences. It is not the Meteoroids fault. It just follows the laws of physics with complete indifference.   
The object is tiny, remember? It has an albedo of 0.07, making it virtually invisible by eye or telescope. If you can lose Ceres for a year, what about this tiny little thing?   
The space agencies monitor earth's surroundings closely, giving the people a sense of security. Yes, there are many Meteoroids in space, and yes, some of them are responsible for mass extinction events, sure. But we are watching, so it's all good, right?

14 minutes. That is the time you have on average to discover a Meteoroid on a trajectory towards earth until it impacts. 14 minutes is too short to mount a rocket, to alert authorities or to evacuate. It is long enough to call Mom a last time and tell her you love her.

Probability is not in Earth's favour that day. The chances of a 2° trajectory relative to the surface normal are slim, even more unprobeable by the composition of the meteorite. It is iron and how unlucky that is. The Meteor does not break up in the atmosphere and it impacts on land with a terminal velocity of 39.6 km/s. Do you know that there has never been an incident of someone being killed directly by a meteorite? There were many firsts that day but their names do not make the history books.   
Humanity's history does not end on that day. Not even on the next, or the after tomorrow. But it ends, with a long, drawn out sigh of relief. 

Humanity is laid to rest in the universes cemetery. The service is short, almost as short as their time . Is it sad to see them go so young? Perhaps.   
But the majority of the universe is unmoved.

**Author's Note:**

> 14 minutes may one day be the time between the discovery of a meteorite and it's impact on earth. Great effort is made to track the meteorites that intersect earth's orbit, but fact is we cannot track all of them and there may very well be extrasolar objects or objects from the Oort Cloud that could destroy earth. It could very well be humanity's fate as it has been the fate of many more species in the past. We are overdue for a catastrophic event, but the probability is slim, though never zero. How small some problems seem, when the universe is so big.


End file.
